1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, generally, to a shock absorbing platform construction upon which a user may sit or stand or onto which may be mounted a seat or other item. It further relates to a seat bottom construction. The platform and seat bottom are adapted for use in vehicles subjected to violent shocks such as speedboats, off-road vehicles, and the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many speedboats, off-road vehicles, and other vehicles are equipped with seats or platforms that provide inadequate protection against shocks of the type encountered by such vehicles. Moreover, many of the known shock-absorbing seats or platforms are structurally complex mechanisms requiring specially manufactured, expensive parts.
What is needed, then, is a shock absorbing seat or platform having improved shock absorbing attributes. The needed seat or platform should be made of inexpensive, relatively few, and commonly available parts.
The known shock-absorbing seats or platforms also lack adjustment means for accommodating users of varying weights. Therefore, they also lack adjustment means to compensate for differing vehicle speeds and the sea state for marine applications or the roughness of the terrain for land applications.
Thus there is a need for an adjustable shock-absorbing seat or platform to compensate for a user's weight, for differing vehicle speeds, sea states, and the like.
Speedboats are often equipped with a pedestal-mounted bolster chair having a heavily padded back and sides and a seat that may be folded out of the way when a user desires to stand. The user folds the horizontal seat when it is unable to adequately attenuate shocks generated by the violent jolting of the vehicle and stands in a space bounded by the back and sides. However, the standing user must then rely on his or her legs to absorb the shocks as they come.
There exists a need, therefore, for a shock-absorbing platform upon which a user may stand when a vehicle is undergoing intense vibrations and shocks.
Moreover, there is a need for such a platform that fits within the space bordered by the back and sides of a bolster chair so that a standing user could be protected at the back and sides by the bolster chair while standing on a shock absorbing platform.
Some boats, such as bass boats, lack shock-absorbing seats. There is a need, then, for a shock absorbing seat that can be placed in such a boat. More particularly, the marine and off-road vehicle industries have a need for a shock absorbing seat bottom which absorbs impact forces directed to the human body when traveling over rough seas or unimproved roads.
The needed shock absorbing seat bottom requires more than a shock-mitigating bias means. Controlled damping of the shock waves is also required, both when the seat bottom is compressed and when the seat bottom rebounds after such compression.
Many of the known seat bottoms are undamped and therefore are subject to unacceptable oscillations. In a boat traveling at high speeds, this can lead to ejection of the occupant and hence to severe or fatal injuries.
Some of the known seat bottoms incorporate a damper to suppress such oscillations, but the construction of such seat bottoms is complex. Perhaps even more importantly, such seat bottoms have a limited range of motion when resisting a shock. For example, a seat bottom having a top wall and a bottom wall will undergo compression when a shock is imparted thereto, i.e., the top and bottom walls will converge toward one another. Such compression is followed by a rebound where such top and bottom walls diverge from one another when the shock dissipates and the bias means acts to return said top and bottom walls to their respective equilibrium positions. In the known seat bottoms having both a bias means for shock absorption and a damping means to damp the natural oscillation of the bias means, the construction is such that top and bottom walls of the seat bottom may not converge closely toward one another during the shock. Thus, the amount of shock that the seat bottom may absorb is limited.
Accordingly, a need is extant for a seat bottom construction having a bias means, a damping means, and a construction with a low profile so that the top and bottom walls of the seat bottom may converge toward one another to a substantially greater degree than possible with prior art seat bottom constructions.
A taller seat could have a greater travel, but at the expense of proper ergonomics.
The shock absorbing attributes of the platforms of the prior art are difficult to adjust. For example, the shock absorbing platform disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,086,742 to Severson requires disassembly and re-assembly of the apparatus to replace a first set of spacer members with a second set of spacer members when a primary adjustment means is inadequate.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,550,740, to the present inventor discloses a shock absorbing platform having multiple dampers that perform a shock absorbing function. However, although the platform provides easy access to adjustment knobs when mounted in a pedestal, it provides no adjustment means as a stand-alone device.
There is a need, then, for a shock absorbing platform that is adjustable to accommodate a user's weight so that it restores full extension quickly, thereby readying the platform to absorb the next impact.
However, in view of the prior art considered as a whole at the time the present invention was made, it was not obvious to those of ordinary skill in the pertinent art how the identified needs could be fulfilled.